Kool-Aid, the official beverage of your childhood, used to be a little more extreme back in the day. It wasn’t just tropical punch and grape—Kool-Aid offered crazy fruit concoctions fronted by crazy mascots or at least provided kids with flavors never actually found in nature. Today, we look back and savor some of our most missed Kool-Aid flavors.

7 – Rock-a-Dile Red

That’s one smooth crocodile!

The 1990s were notorious for many reasons, one of the top ones being the insane amount of character mascots touting food and beverage products. Kool-Aid already had the Kool-Aid Man, but that didn’t stop them from breaking out a bunch of beloved, but unusual, secondary mascots for certain new flavors. In this case, the Rock-a-Dile Red flavor featured the Rock-a-Dile, a red crocodile jazz musician whose saxophone played delicious berry notes of cherry, grape, and strawberry. It’s hard to go wrong with red Kool-Aid to begin with, but if there were ever any doubts Rock-a-Dile Red definitely secured that thought in our hearts.

UPDATE 2014! Rock-a-dile Red is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!

6 – Purplesaurus Rex

This flavor suffered the same fate as the fabled Purplesaurus.

I hate grape Kool-Aid. I hate anything that is grape flavored—it is the devil’s work. Unless, of course, you throw in some lemons and slap a dinosaur on the packaging, in that case I am all over it. Even better: if the dinosaur is stealthily stealing a bunch of grapes from the Kool-Aid Man. Extra points!

UPDATE 2014! Purplesaurus Rex is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!

5 – Great Bluedini

Did I just post hentai?

While there have been other Kool-Aid flavors that changed colors, Great Bluedini went down in the history books as being the first advertised color-changing Kool-Aid. Great Bluedini the character was a magician octopus. Great Bluedini the beverage was blue and antifreeze flavored and thus has a pretty short life in stores.

UPDATE 2014! Great Bluedini is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!

4 – Incrediberry

Beware of the Blob!

Another delicious red Kool-Aid, Incrediberry is a concoction of strawberries and raspberries, fronted by a happy, yet disturbing mascot. The Incrediberry blob is just that—a blob of Kool-Aid that no glass could contain. It looks goopy and blobby and all around unsettling as it soars through the sky. The packet touts that it’s “super fruity” and that it changes color when mixed with water—starting out yellow and transforming into another glorious red beverage.

3 – Pink Swimmingo

I didn’t think flamingos could get any more annoying…

Donning Bermuda shorts, sunglasses, a backwards hat, and binoculars, the Pink Swimmingo is a frazzled tourist flamingo whose flavor was also produced under the less exciting moniker of Watermelon-Cherry. Falling under the realm of red Kool-Aids with an unusual combination of fruit flavors, Pink Swimmingo was right up there with another favorite—Sharkleberry Fin—but tasted a bit too much like regular old cherry to make it into shark-quality territory.

UPDATE 2014! Pink Swimmingo is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!

2 – Sharkleberry Fin

Fintastic!

There are pink sharks advertising this beverage. Pink. Sharks. Do I need to write up a whole paragraph on that? Just in case—strawberries, oranges, and bananas on their own aren’t all that bad. But when they team up, they will wreak havoc on your tastebuds—in a totally pleasant way. Crystal Lite makes a Strawberry Orange Banana flavor that could pass as an aspartamed-up version of Sharkleberry Fin. Not unpleasant, but not as awesome as the original. A fine beverage either way, though.

UPDATE 2014! Sharkleberry Fin is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!

1 – Berry Blue (later: Ice Blue)

Nothing quenches thirst quite like windshield wiper fluid.

It seems unlikely, but adding lemons to anything makes that first thing 75% tastier. We saw how lemons worked their magic earlier on in the list by teaming up with grapes for Purplesaurus Rex. And here they are again to team up with blue raspberries for the best Kool-Aid flavor in (non) existence—Berry Blue. Thanks to the ill effects of windshield wiper fluid on small children, Berry Blue was discontinued for many years. It’s a common parenting flub to keep windshield wiper fluid in a smiling Kool-Aid Man pitcher in the front of the fridge, so I suppose it is understandable.

The flavor did make a triumphant comeback in the late 1990s as Ice Blue, part of the Island Twists line, and is still available in supermarkets today. I’m glad I could give this article a happy ending.

Did we miss your favorite Kool-Aid flavor? Let us know about it in the comments!

Author: Linz Rewind
Linz is a freelance writer and editor who just so happens to be obsessed with E.T. for Atari. Try not to hold it against her.

43 Comments

Doesn’t look like there’s a raspberry flavor on its own, but there is Blue Raspberry Jammers. Might be able to score some old packs at convenience stores– that’s where I’ve had some luck getting older flavors.

The original flavor named “Berry Blue” was a blue raspberry lemonade. It was discontinued for a while then put back on the market with a new name, “Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade” which is what it is still named in stores today. The “Mixed Berry” flavor you are referring to is a blend of blueberry and strawberry flavors and it was never called “Berry Blue”. The color of “Berry Blue” and “Mixed Berry” is a similar blue color, but they are 2 completely different flavors.

Berry blue was the color of windex (glass cleaner) but what was so unique about it was that it tasted blue. Yes if blue was a flavor that was it. I would ask people “here try this” then I would ask. “ok. what flavor was that??” and 9 out of 10 people said “BLUE”

omg berry blue is my all time favoritte kool aid and pop-cycle flavor!!!!!! and the lemonade was awesome! also the plain old lime , the grape , (the purplesaurus rex was a hit when my son was a boy) and the pink swimingo was fantastic! and you add your own sugar, so they are not so disgustingly sweet and they aren’t full of fake chemical sugar…tried to buy kool aid packages the other day, (because I love it,) at the local safeway to no avail…only box packs of 2 flavor I don’t drink…Have the regulasr packages been discontinued?

I loved all of the Island Twist flavors! And orange-pineapple mixed with watermelon-cherry was the best of all! I also miss those Invisible flavors. I wish all of the Kool-Aid flavors would come back. I love having a large variety. I always make a gallon at a time. I just use an empty gallon water jug. My ex and I once bought two packets of every flavor. We took one of each and put them in a bag and then put the others in a little box. We’d reach into the bag and pick one out at random and then find the other in the box and we made a gallon of the original flavor instead of a cocktail. These days, I sweeten with Splenda!

I have a wonderful recipe, Southern Breeze Punch, calling for Blue Raspberry Kool-aid. Until recently, I was able to purchase the packets at one of our local (Albuquerque, NM) Walmart stores. Now, I can’t find it at all. Is there a way to purchase it online. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks heaps,

I run a business and I use a lot of Kool Aid and the people are asking about Lemon Lime Kool Aid then I realized I haven’t seen Lemon Lime. So I just want to know if it’s sold in other states. I’m from Michigan. I hope some one can give me some information about the Lemon Lime Kool Aid. I need it A.S.AP. THANK YOU.

I think Lemon Lime Kool-Aid might be discontinued now:( I tried finding it a year or two ago and had no luck. I think I ended up either getting Lemon Lime Crystal Lite or Lemon Lime drink crystals from the bulk food store.